Pages

While I was on vacation in Italy last year I got the chance to try some really amazing pizza! My favorite had to be the thin crust style pizza and that was nice and light and it had an almost crackery texture to it. When I got back from Italy I went on a quest to duplicate that thin crust style pizza at home and after trying a bunch of recipes I settled on this thin crust pizza dough from PizzaMaking.com that gave me the best results.

This recipe can be a bit tricky and it took me a few tries to get it just right but it is well worth the effort. One thing to keep in mind is that this recipe requires
you to let the dough sit for 24 hours so you need to plan on that when on making a pizza. This dough has a really low water to flour ratio which means that you pretty much need to mix the dough in a food processor and even then, the dough is going to be very dry. In fact the dough will be more like crumbs but as long as you can form it into a ball then everything is ok. After sitting for the 24 hours the dough will not have risen very much but it will now have a more dough like consistency. The dough will be a little hard to work with but you want to roll it out as thinly as possible. To keep the dough from puffing up like a pita, I like to perforate it with a fork a few times. You then bake the pizza crust in a 500F oven until it just starts to turn a light golden brown. This pre-baking helps ensure that the crust will be nice and crispy even under the toppings. Once you are done with the pre-baking you can top the pizza with your favourite toppings and then it is back into the oven for its final baking.

Now that I have my thin crust pizza dough recipe, it is time to start experimenting with some toppings!

Thin Crust Pizza Dough

Servings: 1

ingredients

6 tablespoons warm water

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 3/4 cups bread flour

directions

Mix the water, oil, yeast and sugar in a small bowl.

Mix everything in a food processor until it starts to from small crumbs.

Press the crumbs together to form a ball.

Place the ball in a bowl, cover and let it rise for 24 hours.

Roll the dough out very thinly on a lightly floured surface.

Poke the dough with a fork all over.

Place the dough on a pan and bake in a preheated 500F/260C oven until it just starts to turn golden brown, about 4 minutes.

Pull the pizza out of the oven and top with the toppings.

Bake in the 500F/260C oven until the edges are golden brown and the cheese has melted, about 5 minutes.

Oh yes, I love Italy's thin crust pizza too!! I've thought about it ever since i had my first taste, wishing I could make it myself. I don't have a food processor so not sure whether to attempt this recipe, but happy to try.

Love the side shot of the dough. It looks gorgeous. I've been playing around with various dough recipes though I always seem to come back to one from The Figs Table Cookbook. American Pie is also a great resource for me, but the kind I've been most curious/excited about at the moment is the idea of doing a brioche dough crust which isaw in another cookbook. Yum!

Nicole: I don't think that I would try this recipe with regular whole wheat flour. If you have access to the white whole wheat flour, that might work but since I have not been able to find it, I have not tried it yet.

Anonymous: This is a very dry dough with a low water to flour ratio. I have tried mixing the dough by hand and I found that I needed to add a lot more water to make it hold together and it did not give the same results.

Love your blog BUT I tried this recipe 3 different times with disastrous results. Every time the dough turns out dry and crumbly - like a pile of dustballs. It won't hold together when I try to roll it out (after resting for 24 hours). Any ideas? Add more water?

Kevin: This dough is definitely a dry one but it should just hold together in a ball when you pull it out of the food processor and as it sits the moisture will spread out. By the time that you pull it out 24 hours later it should be a dough that you can roll. Some ideas: Try processing it a bit more in the food processor to make sure that the water is well distributed. You can try adding an extra tablespoon of water if absolutely needed. Make sure that when you are measuring the flour that it is light and fluffy rather than packed, you can sift it to make sure that it is. Are you at a high altitude? That can change baking parameters.

I might be late to the party, but have tried your thin crust dough a few times now (don't know if you have seen the other products - wine/vodka - but we call it "skinny girl pizza") anyways, for those suffering from dry crumbing dough, a couple of ideas (1) add one 1/2 T-sp of high gluten flour (2) coat with olive/veg oil before letting it rest, and (3) let it rest 24 hrs in the oven with the oven light on.

BTW, just for fun, I have put this dough thru my pasta maker ( on a variety of roller setting down to #2) and then spliced two pieces together to make a nice sized pizza! But still enjoy hand rolling :)

Post a Comment

About Me

I came to realize that my meals were boring and that I had been eating the same few dishes over and over again for years. It was time for a change! I now spend my free time searching for, creating and trying tasty new recipes in my closet sized kitchen.